By Patroclos
BEFORE moving on to less serious things, our establishment would like to express its total disgust over the government’s appallingly misguided decision to grant only one casino licence for the whole of the country, when the pseudo-state has two dozen.
We will become a regional centre of ridicule when people hear that the Republic has just one casino compared to the pseudo-state’s 24. It might even lead to direct dealings between international gambling associations and the north which would be tantamount to recognition.
No self-respecting patriot can just sit back and allow this to happen. It is a national imperative to issue more licences and we were relieved that DIKO, which always puts the country’s interest above everything, has objected to this treacherously unpatriotic decision, even though it has yet to take an official stand.
It is very disappointing that the Anastasiades government approached the casinos as an exclusively economic/business matter, ignoring its political dimensions that are certain to impact on the Cyprob and the efforts for a fair and just settlement, based on the respect for the human right of every Cypriots to operate a casino.
How can we speak of political equality between the two sides when the Turks are allowed to have 24 casinos and the Greeks only one?
ON A MORE practical level, how can a country in which some 300 internet casinos were operating, as viable businesses, be served by just one? And what will all the municipalities, banking on increasing their revenue by establishing a casino and taking the money of their rate-payers at the roulette table rather than from garbage collection (which is peanuts and involves issuing invoices, chasing up payments etc), do now?
How will the cash-strapped Tseri municipality survive without a casino? What will the Coffeeshop now do with all those plastic decks of cards it invested in, not to mention the two professional-looking roulette wheels it bought from Mavros toy shop?
I thought I would never live to say this, but our only hope is DIKO, the only party that recognises the national importance of issuing more than one casino licence.
THE TAX amnesty announced by the government on Thursday, with the aim of encouraging people to bring their money back to Kyproulla, sounded more like a sick joke than a pragmatic policy decision, as it was based on the assumption that tax evaders have a very low IQ.
But if the tax evaders have an average IQ, which is entirely possible, there is no way they would bring their millions back to Kyproulla, where there is a possibility they would never be able to use the moollah again. As for the criteria set by the government for offering the amnesty, they are also based on the low IQ assumption.
For the amnesty to apply, repatriated capital would have to go towards settling the tax evader’s debts to banks or the state. If he has no such obligations he could use it in ‘measurable’ investments. Alternatively he could put it in a bank or a co-op, as a five-year fixed deposit, and pray it would still be there in 2018.
An even safer option offered by the government, would be to invest in Cyprus government bonds. Now what unintelligent tax evader could ignore such an attractive offer to make his millions legitimate before he loses them?
THE ONLY people to take the amnesty farce seriously were deputies, who suffered from dangerously high blood pressure, as they embarked on indignant sermons against rewarding tax evaders and demanded the imposition of additional criteria.
Deputies have nerve to talk about tax evaders, considering lawful tax evasion is one of the main perks of their job – they pay no tax on the car they buy and about half their remuneration is not subject to income tax – which none of the public-minded members of the legislature has suggested to give up now the country is bankrupt and needs every cent it can get.
All agreed that it would be outrageous to reward those selfish unpatriotic individuals that transferred their deposits abroad just before the Eurogroup meetings and demanded that the amnesty law excluded them. A possibility ignored by deputies was that the funds transferred abroad did not stem from tax evasion.
But all this talk, like the tax amnesty, is fantasy. Nobody will bring their money back, not even if the government promised to give each tax evader a donum of state land and a tax free car as an added incentive.
DESPITE all the doom and gloom, some good news was reported. The head of Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC), Demetra Kalogirou said she hoped shares of the new Bank of Cyprus could start trading in October.
A rather optimistic forecast that borders on wishful thinking, but public employees need to justify their salaries, a difficult task in current conditions. On Friday at 1pm, the total volume of transactions at the Cyprus stock exchange was in the region of 50 grand, 40 per cent of which went on Hellenic Bank shares which fell in value by 19 per cent.
Without Laiki and B of C, which accounted for 80 per cent of daily transactions, the stock exchange cannot justify its existence. The value of transactions is bigger at the Wednesday fruit and vegetable market at the Ochi roundabout in Nicosia which operates very smoothly without any highly-paid pen-pushers, sitting in luxury, air-conditioned offices, to regulate it.
NOBODY could have guessed that the occupying force of the part of Kyproulla formerly known as the free areas, the tyrannical troika, was back in town. Apart from the pictures gracing the papers and TV news of the IMF’s fearsome enforcer, deleterious Delia, there was very little to suggest the terrible troikan tyrants were visiting our martyred island.
There was no media hysteria, the politicians were not issuing ultimatums and drawing red lines as they had done on earlier visits, while union bosses said nothing about the neo-liberal cures imposed on poor public employees. Even the commies of AKEL ignored the presence of the neo-colonial occupiers, dealing with the more familiar issue of condemning the twin crimes of July 1974.
Does this signify a concession of defeat by our usually brave and fearless politicians? What has happened to the spirit of heroic defiance and resistance we witnessed last year when the troikans were here, the fighting spirit that inspired the resounding ‘no’ to the A-plan and to the first Eurogroup deal?
All we have heard this week is the finance minister doing his best to please the tyrants and earn a pat on the pack, in the hope that our good behaviour will persuade them to help save the B of C.
KNOWING that any attack on the troika will make them look weak and powerless, our courageous deputies chose a much weaker foe to bully and display their toughness – the academics of the University of Cyprus.
A few weeks ago they decided to block the expense allowances paid to all professors and associate professors. The allowances had been introduced to attract top academics to the fledgling university when it started operating some 20 years ago, but eventually became a right, being paid to all profs and ass profs.
Our state university academics are very well-paid, compared to their colleagues in Greece, Italy or Spain, but then again so are our civil servants, state school teachers, army officers, but deputies never tried to cut their earnings.
IF THE MATTER was left at that there would not have been an issue, but 10 days ago our tough deputies decided to block the spending of funds generated by the CyprusUniversity, from EU research programmes, donations and fees for post-graduate courses which is in excess of €40 million.
The result will be that some 500 researchers working on these programmes would not receive their paltry pay. A more interesting case is that of the academic, who is the co-ordinator of an EU programme in which other universities are participating, and would not be able to transfer to them some €800,000 they are due, because our smart deputies have blocked the expenditure.
I suspect that before the end of the week the deputies of the education committee will meet to approve the expenditure, all the country witnessing their humiliating failure to subdue faint-hearted academics.
THE BMW distributor was not very happy to hear that former comrade president Tof, afraid of the public outcry, decided not to take delivery of the Beemer he had ordered for his retirement, at the taxpayer’s expense as was his legal right to do.
It means that the distributor is now stuck with a 7-series BMW, security-armoured and all extras with a price tag close to 100 grand. It would have cost the government only €43,000 as no taxes would have been paid. The distributor will be kicking himself for not asking for the money up front.
The comrade announced his decision on Wednesday when he dropped in of Prez Nik to give back the other presidential limo he was using to get around town. He said: “For reasons of dignity I renounce this right.” This meant he also renounced the right to have a state-paid chauffeur, even though he could use one of the 16 cops in his personal guard (his dignity did not force him to renounce this right) to drive him around.
I FEAR that one of our establishment’s heroes, Averof Neophytou has betrayed his neo-liberal beliefs since taking over as leader of DISY, preferring to take middle-of-the-road positions on mundane issues that are all things to all people.
Worst still, last Monday, during the coup anniversary plenum at the legislature he made openings to AKEL inviting it to reconciliation talks, with the aim of securing some kind of national unity. He pandered to the commies by condemning the coup and AKEL chief Andros agreed to dialogue between the parties as long as certain conditions were met.
His line was that unity could be achieved if DISY acknowledged historical events and realities, a condition he repeated on a radio show a few days later.
Reports spoke of a meeting this week. We hope Averof does not end up acknowledging the historic realities regarding Stalin’s enlightened leadership, the superiority of the Soviet system and the cruelty of capitalism.
SPEAKING of the coup, you just cannot help but admire the audacity and hypocrisy of the Paphite opportunist Yiorkos Lillikas, whose party the Citizens’ Alliance issued a scathing announcement, condemning the presence of a government minister at a memorial service for commandoes who had died taking part in the coup against Makarios. Lillikas’ Alliance that is leftist, rightist and centrist is represented in the legislature by Nicos Koutsou, who defected from the Eurococks and had taken an active part in the 1974 coup.
LAIKI BANK may have closed down but the heavily subsidised Laiki Sporting Club in Latsia is still operating. Is this another loss-making asset that has been transferred to B of C and is being paid for by its hapless depositors?
The Club boasts what has been described as the best gym in Kyproulla as well as swimming pool, tennis, squash, basketball and futsal courts, sauna, solarium and functions rooms for receptions and banquets. And it is the only Laiki subsidiary that has hired extra staff, with its management not bothering about keeping labour costs down, now that the B of C depositors are picking up the bill.
SPEAKING of banks, we should remind B of C depositors and ex-shareholders who would like to throw a few eggs or rotten tomatoes and shout nasty abuse at the bank’s former CEO Andreas Eliades that he is due appear before the investigative committee for the economy tomorrow. His appearance had been pencilled in for July 22, but he may have decided, for safety reasons, not to attend. Then again Eliades, a former commando, is a tough cookie who will want to clear his name and explain that the collapse of the bank had nothing to do with him.
